This week’s creative prompts take inspiration from the splendors of the sky and space. Take a few minutes, or more, to ponder the starry beyond. You can write fiction, non-fiction, or poetry—or you can write a song, do a dance, paint a picture, or sculpt. As long as you’re making something, you’re using the prompt correctly.
- Choose ten items at random from the English-language side of this list of constellation names and fit them into a poem or piece of flash prose.
- Landing a rover on Mars would’ve been unthinkable to most of us 20 years ago. Make a list of imagined space-travel-related news headlines for 20 years from now.
- Let a vintage NASA photo propel you into a piece of writing.
- Imagine a character from another planet who’s doing their best to fit in on Earth. Describe some small ways in which they inadvertently demonstrate their otherwordliness, or write a scene or some verse in which it’s revealed to great reaction—either good or bad.
- Write a scene, story, or poem taking place either before, or after, a total solar eclipse. Read Annie Dillard’s essay as inspiration.
- Recall a time when you were struck by the abundance—or absence—of visible stars in the night sky. Write about it.
- Listen to Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’ while writing, and see what the music inspires.
- Outline a piece of prose or poetry that takes the form of ideas orbiting a central idea, a heat and light source. Map out your idea like a solar system.
- A nebula in space is a cloud of dust and gas that lights up beautifully. Write about an ordinary or even painful thing that is luminescent from a distant.
- Find a recently reported UFO sighting from an area where you live, or have lived. Click on the date/time to read the reporter’s narrative, and use it as a starting point for a piece of writing.
- Imagine that a new planet has been discovered in our solar system. Describe it—where was it discovered, and why hadn’t it been found before? Does it have moon? An atmosphere? Does it hold life?
Put aside your perfectionism for this prompt: the perfect is the enemy of the done. Plus, you can always revise and edit later. Maybe this turns into a great piece, and maybe it ends up in the recycling bin. Either way, you’ve flexed your creative muscles today and learned from it.
Did you miss earlier prompts lists? Here they are.
Like what you’ve written? Put it away for a week, then revisit, and revise, revise, revise. When it’s ready to go, submit. If you have feedback, or ideas for prompts, please get in touch.